Another myth bites the dust: Libertarians take votes from the GOP

Public Policy Polling's latest data on the North Carolina races indicates what I have long been contending: true Libertarian candidates will take votes from both Democrats and Republicans who value freedom-related issues:

-60% of voters who support Michael Munger for Governor support Barack Obama for President with 19% going for Bob Barr and just 14% for John McCain. A plurality also support Kay Hagan (40%), with 36% going to Christopher Cole and 19% to Elizabeth Dole. So in this case his supporters are pretty clearly taking support from Bev Perdue. This could be a product of liberals antagonized by Perdue's stands on offshore drilling and community college attendance for illegal immigrants going over to Munger until Perdue gives them a reason to vote for her.

-Among those supporting Christopher Cole for Senate it is basically a dead heat between John McCain and Barack Obama. 39% of them go for McCain, 34% of them go for Obama, and 19% support Bob Barr. For Governor 44% support Pat McCrory, 30% for Munger, and 23% for Perdue.

-Bob Barr's supporters are also going Libertarian for US Senate- 41% support Cole, 28% support Hagan, and 25% support Dole. For Governor it's almost a three way tie, with 36% going for McCrory, 33% for Munger, and 27% for Perdue.

The bottom line? It looks the Libertarians are taking roughly equal numbers of voters from Republicans and Democrats, and if there is any lean toward them taking from Republicans it's a small one.

This goes back to the post down below where I piggybacked from Tom Knapp, and it is an example of what Libertarians need to do if they are going to be a factor in American politics.

[Thanks to Chris Cole for pointing me to this]

Comments

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...

Search This Blog